


Our Hands Tightly Holding

by gunpowdereyes



Series: When the Nights Are Cold [2]
Category: Glee RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-11
Updated: 2014-04-11
Packaged: 2018-01-18 22:37:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1445392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gunpowdereyes/pseuds/gunpowdereyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He tells himself to stop being stupid, to have some faith and hope.  After all, there are still plenty of cities left to break his heart with absence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our Hands Tightly Holding

**Author's Note:**

> Set at the Nashville stop on the Listen Up! tour, because in my head (where all things count the most), Chris was absolutely at that show. Darren's POV of events in All the Silence I've Become, but can be read independently.
> 
> Warning: 118% Crisscolfer fic, but mentions of and implied, indeterminate *something* with That Guy.

It’s the strangest thing.

Darren has felt _different_ all day, unexpectedly buoyed, as if he’s been watching the sun fight its way through the clouds when it was only supposed to rain. He would have chalked it up to hanging out with Chord, but it hasn’t been quite like that. Less comfortable friendship, more like a crawling beneath his skin, happiness and unfed hunger. Maybe he’s just getting too far past horny, which doesn’t bode well for the rest of the tour. After all it’s now been weeks since . . .

He stops the thought there, because if he starts thinking about it willingly, his heart’s going to be a bigger mess than it has been with Chris just skirting the edges of Darren’s consciousness.

He knows he’s not fooling anyone who has the beginnings of a clue. Which is fine by him, because he’s not sure he’s actually trying to. If he could etch it on his body and let them all learn his secrets when they touch him, he would. Instead he settles for singing what’s on his mind, in between the songs about everything that’s not.

Not seeing Chris in L.A. was so much harder than not seeing him San Francisco, because it actually surprised him. It would have been reasonable for Chris to attend there, it would have been as safe and normal as these things can get. It wouldn’t have raised any strange questions, would have just settled Darren instead. And now the worst part is wondering if he’ll ever show up. Every night Darren looks for a sign of him, thinks even if he wants to be there and pretend he wasn’t, even if he wants to watch snatches of the shows on shaky YouTube videos, Darren doesn’t fucking care. He just wants to know that Chris is still . . . paying some kind of attention, at the very least. That he hasn’t really just stopped. Stopped everything.

Seeing that Chris went to Florida with a decidedly different person, without hearing it from him first, was so much shittier than everything else put together.

He knows. He knows that Chris getting away is smart and if they had planned it together, curled up under the safe cover of a moonless night, this is exactly what they would have done. Darren goes on tour and Chris is clearly, obviously, conveniently _not there_. Except that in their plans, of course, Chris would be there. Somehow, at some point. Maybe unseen, but Darren’s the only one who needs to see him anyway.

He tells himself to stop being stupid, to have some faith and hope. After all, there are still plenty of cities left to break his heart with absence. He only comes close to feeling hopeless about it, childish and wrong, when it occurs to him that he’s been performing every show, every goddamned song, like there’s still some small chance that Chris might be watching. He doesn’t know what he hopes Chris will take from it, which parts he wants Chris to hear the clearest: the memory, the longing, the jealousy, _(the bitterness_ , a small voice inside of him says), that ‘the end’ is just ‘an end,’ not a death sentence. The fact that freaking out and digging in your heels is not always the answer, a lesson Darren has learned over and over again. He just wants Chris to see and hear and somehow _know._  

He is constantly betrayed by how much he wants _._

But something’s different tonight, because Chris _is_ watching. He thinks he catches Chris’s scent, walking out to take the stage, catches a glimpse of him disappearing around a corner, feels it within him in the same way he knows that Chris still loves him, no matter what stupid shit they’re currently waist-deep in. And there’s some clear, pure thing in the connection of love as Darren knows it, because he knows it’s not fantasizing. He knows he’s right. Chris is here.

\---

Darren loses himself in the blur of the show, pours his heart and a few other vital organs into it, as usual. But when he comes to “I Don’t Mind” he sings it like he did the very first time. Early morning, sleep eluding him even as he watched how it captured Chris, eased the tension between his brows and through his shoulders, set a sweet half-smile on his lips. He’d thought then, he thinks now, that every single stupid thing they’ve endured was worth it because nothing else could make him feel like this. Even the jealousy, even the frustration, even the countless lies they’ve told to everyone but themselves. Everyone but one another. Because tipping the other end of the scales is _this_ : Chris beside him, Chris in his arms, Chris’s face so radiant, as if it forgets that it has ever done anything but smile. Watching Chris come awake, strumming the simple melody to him, for him, seeing all of that feeling reflected back in his eyes.

He sings it like there could never be anyone else in his heart like that again, which is the truest fucking thing he knows.

\---

It’s funny how he doesn’t expect Chris to _still_ be there. He’s been caught up in the fun and frenzy of getting to hang out with the fans, getting to talk to them about everything and nothing, trying to make them understand that it’s an honour for him to meet them, not the other way around. He’s been lifted by that indisputable knowledge that Chris was _there_ , Chris _saw_ him, quieting a question that’s been hanging dark within him. He didn’t even make it far enough to hope that Chris might stay.

He’s momentarily stupid with the surprise of it, coming face to face with Chris, the familiar spark that lights within him. He never gets used to how beautiful Chris is, how he just gets more improbably beautiful all the time, and shouldn’t there be some way to stop _everybody_ from being able to see that, stop the assholes who didn’t already know the ins and outs of him and know that he was perfect all along. Because isn’t that failure how . . . isn’t that why . . . but Darren can’t finish the thought, can’t think about what (or who) might be infringing on them because it’s Chris, uncertain eyes and guarded crooked little smile like he can read Darren’s rambling thoughts and _Chris_. It feels as if they’ve been apart for years.

Chris slides his hand around Darren’s and brushes his thumb across the ring he finds there, turning it absently the way he has a thousand times before. Darren swallows hard, feeling the first blocks within him giving way, and lifts his gaze to Chris’s inscrutable face. Chris meets his eyes then, and Darren forgets everything he’s ever known that couldn’t be contained in the breath’s width between them. He squeezes back as the hand on his tightens, overwhelmed and feeling horribly like he might just start to cry. Except with Chris even that wouldn’t be so terrible; Chris has seen him at his worst, and there has been so much worse than some tears. Chris loves him anyway.

“You’re exhausted,” Chris says, not a question but a simple statement of fact.

“Nah, no, it’s been so amazing, I’m . . .” Darren licks his lips, averts his eyes as he thinks that through, and even as he denies it he _feels_ it, dropping on him sudden and solid, as if from a great height. But it’s not tiredness alone. “It’s just harder than I thought it was gonna be,” he says finally, knowing without asking that Chris understands precisely what he means. He looks at Chris again as his voice gets quieter. “Already. And I think it might just get worse.”

Concern furrows Chris’s brows. Darren reaches up to smooth the crease away with his thumb. “Don’t make that face.” When it doesn’t waver, Darren stretches up and kisses him there instead, whispers, “babe, please.”

There’s always been something about that endearment that has undone Chris, and Darren knows it. He runs his hands up Chris’s sides, drawing his t-shirt with him as he goes. Chris sighs, familiar, laced with desire.   

Darren kisses him then, and everything around them stops, retracts, becomes _less_. Nothing matters, nothing counts but Chris’s hands tangled in his hair, his mouth moving to Darren’s neck, Darren pressing him down into the couch. He’s desperate, already painfully hard, his fucking fingers are tingling with want, but he can’t rush through this.

“You locked the door, right?” Chris murmurs, as voices, sharp and sudden, float past outside.

“Did someone see you come in?” Darren answers, sitting back to eye him.

“Maybe? I mean yeah, of course.” He blinks, a little more focused. “What kind of crack team are you running that would let just anybody walk into your dressing room? Some of the people out there are _crazy_ , don’t think that I don’t know.”

“No, they wouldn’t, just maybe you finally fucking learned to apparate, I don’t fucking know, but then I’d probably still have to invite you,” Darren says automatically, rambling, stupid and totally aware of it as the corners of Chris’s mouth curve up in an expression that’s five seconds away from turning making fun of him into a higher priority than fucking him. “But you’ve always got a standing invitation so that wouldn’t matter,” he says, unable to help finishing the thought. They spare each other quick smiles only halfway tinged with sadness before Darren shakes his head. “If someone knows you’re here, no one’s fucking coming in.”

Chris seems to believe that (and he should, it’s _true)_ , and there is no more talking.

\---

They learned long ago to blend tenderness with urgency; how to fuck when it was a thin disguise for making love. Darren fights every instinct he has and takes his time, drawing keening noises from Chris, feels as if he’s being recklessly stripped apart and carefully stitched back together. Sex with Chris has always been like that, too much and never close to enough. He can’t say it right now, can’t risk it, so he paints _I love yous_ across Chris’s skin instead as he reveals it, mouthing his ribs, _I need you_ in the drag of his teeth down the sharp curve of his hip, licking _you’re so fucking beautiful_ in a wide stripe up from the base of his cock, twisting his fingers inside of Chris until Chris shivers and pulls at his hair, body arching in a helpless request for more.

Darren leaves marks on him, unmistakeable and territorial and a distant part of his brain knows that Chris prickles at it, doesn’t want to be treated like a possession. And he’s not, but Darren can’t _help_ it, and every time he sees no evidence of anyone else doing this to Chris he doesn’t think about it as Chris’s wishes being respected. He just thinks _thank fucking god_.

Jealousy has never brought out the best in him.

He buries his face in Chris’s neck, closes his eyes, fucks him in slow thrusts as Chris murmurs warm and breathless, so familiar, so fucking _needy,_ _DarrenfuckyesDarren you’re so – I’m so –you feel so god please just like don’t stop._ He drags it out until he’s trembling, he can’t hang on anymore, getting his knees under him and driving in fast and hard until the old couch creaks on every stroke and Chris’s cheeks are flushed, his quick breaths giving way to little moans as Darren gets the right angle ( _fucking YES, fucking just like jesus fuckfuckfuck)_ , digging his fingers into Darren’s hip, the other hand fisted tight around himself. Darren touches Chris’s fingers, wants to taste him, swallow him down, make him writhe, wants days with him to do nothing but remind both of them why they do this, why it always comes back to this and always will (please, oh please). But need trumps want and Chris is bucking and coming under him, crying out as his eyes open, go blissful-blank, and Darren fucks him through it. Darren surrenders to the pull of his body, falling close to him and biting down on his shoulder as he shudders and comes and Chris will lecture him for this but it’s worth it, it’s worth it, it’s all fucking worth it.

Darren gets rid of the condom and collapses, and for some time there’s no sound but the skipping beat of his heart and Chris forcibly calming his breathing, absently twirling a curl of Darren’s hair around one finger. They are sticky, peaceful, quiet. Jesus Darren has _missed_ him.

He doesn’t want to move, barely wants to breathe, wants to do nothing to upset this delicate balance – and yet finally he can’t stop the question that’s burning through him. “Is he here?”

He feels the tension in Chris’s body even before he sees it reflected in the tightening of his jaw. “He’s – in town,” Chris says finally. Carefully.

Darren remembers, without particularly wanting to, the last time he saw Chris. After his birthday party, after watching them together yet again, Chris not sparing Darren more than polite, brief smiles; after being paralyzed by the wrongness of it. The sick twist of jealousy in his stomach. Left alone with Chris, drunk and tired and weighed down he’d _yelled_ , and he feels hot with shame now to think about it. It’s not just what he’d said: that Chris could do better, that he knows the painful agreements they’ve made but did he think Darren really meant it would be _okay,_ didn’t they say it would never be anything _serious,_ what the fuck is Chris thinking, Darren can’t actually stand a single thing about that guy, that Chris _has_ done better. It was the tiredness on Chris’s face, the resignation. The way his voice had cut through Darren’s consciousness, cold and calm. “You’re right. He’s not anything like you. He’s someone _I can have_.”

And never mind that Chris has every hopeless inch of Darren, because what good answer was there to that.

He breathes deeply now, his eyes closed against Chris’s cheek. He wants to ask so many questions. What happened, why did they go away together, why didn’t he _tell_ Darren. Is it getting serious. Does Chris close his eyes late at night and remember every detail of having Darren beside him, the way Darren does about him. Does he remember promising that they could survive anything, one breathless night as the Glee Live tour drew to a close? Does he remember every time they’ve made good on that promise? Does he still think they could?

Does he know that Darren still believes it, thinks about it every fucking day? That some days it’s the only thing that gets him through?

It’s not that he expects Chris to wait forever. He knows Chris deserves someone who can give him everything, and that Darren – this version of himself at least, all catches and complications – can’t. Fuck, Chris just deserves so much more. Someone who can walk down the goddamned street with him and say, _look, this is the person I love and I am so fucking proud to be with him_.

It’s not that he doesn’t know that. It’s not even that the other guy (and that’s how Darren thinks of him, capitalized for emphasis and etched out in ominous red: The Other Guy) is that terrible. He’s probably not, how would Darren know when he avoids him like the fucking plague.

It’s not that Darren doesn’t know that in some respects, he has _become_ The Other Guy.

It’s just that for all of the good things he wants for Chris, and at the end of it all he _only_ wants the very best things for Chris, even in the gut-wrenching event that those didn’t turn out to include him, in the end . . . he doesn’t want Chris to settle.

It turns out there’s no kind way to ask if that’s what he’s doing. It turns out Darren doesn’t want to know the answer even if there was.

Chris sighs and shifts in his arms, but doesn’t make a move to get up. And in the end Darren doesn’t ask anything else, just holds on tighter because Chris is here, isn’t he? For now it’s the only answer that he needs.


End file.
